This paper was presented at the Association for Education in Journalism and
Mass Communication in Toronto, Canada, August 2004.
If you have questions about this paper, please contact the author
directly. If you have questions about the archives, email
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(Oct 2004)
Thank you.
Elliott Parker
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The Other Double V:
The Chicago Defender's Dual Victory Campaign During 1942
Earnest L. Perry Jr.
Associate Professor
Editorial Department
School of Journalism
University of Missouri-Columbia
179C Gannett Hall
Columbia, Missouri 65211
The Other Double V:
The Chicago Defender's Dual Victory Campaign During 1942
This study examines the Chicago Defender's dual victory campaign from its
inception in March 1942 until it quietly vanished from the newspaper's
pages in June 1942. The campaign coincided with a tumultuous period in the
relationship between African Americans and the white majority during the
war. The reluctance on the part of the military to allow African American
men to enlist and its continued segregation policies caused African
Americans to question why they should participate in a war to save
democracy abroad when they were denied freedoms at home. The Defender's
campaign differed from that of the more famous Pittsburgh Courier in that
it also promoted a self-help plan to strengthen the African American
community and debunk negative stereotypes.
The Other Double V:
The Chicago Defender's Dual Victory Campaign During 1942
In the March 7, 1942 edition on the Chicago Defender, a letter from W.
Washington of 4309 Calumet Avenue stated that "with America trying to
spread the gospel the Four Freedoms world-wide, why should we cease our
fight for them right here at home." He ended his letter with the phrase
"while we "Remember Pearl Harbor" let's "Remember Jim Crow."[1]
Seven days later the Chicago Defender began its version of a dual victory
campaign. Its slogan was similar to Washington's cry, but instead of the
phrase "Remember Jim Crow" its editors decided to use the violent lynching
of Cleo Wright in Sikeston, Missouri in late January 1942 as the
juxtaposition to Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.[2] The slogan "Remember
Pearl Harbor and Sikeston Too: The Fight To Save Democracy" would be seen
in the pages of the Chicago Defender for the next seven months. However,
unlike its rival, the Pittsburgh Courier, the Defender's dual victory
campaign sought to influence its readers to act in their economic best
interest as opposed to the Courier's more patriotic tone.[3]
In its front page editorial announcing its dual victory campaign the
Defender stated that the Pearl Harbor attack and the lynching in Sikeston
were "the result of chronic delinquencies that must be remedied quickly if
American democracy is to survive the acid test to which the Axis has put
it."[4] The rest of the editorial outlined the duality of American
democracy in the form of a segregated military and blood supply,
discrimination in employment and housing, and the disenfranchising effects
of poll-taxes and peonage. It also pointed out that America's enemies were
using African American second-class citizenship as propaganda. However, the
piece ends with a reaffirmation of African American loyalty to the United
States.[5]
The front page editorial tapped into the double consciousness African
Americans faced during World War II. They struggled against the militant
side that wanted to continue the fight for equal rights at home and stay
out of the war abroad, and the patriotic side that supported the
government's war effort. The Defender's campaign, like the Courier's and
others, wanted to make it clear that African Americans could do both.
However, on page seven of the same issue, the Defender went further in
stating that it would sponsor a "National Negro Defense Program" that would
"secure full citizenship rights" for African Americans and "marshal enough
new business enterprises to form the basis for a new and sound economic
structure."[6]
This study examines the Defender's dual victory campaign from its
inception in March 1942 until it quietly vanished from the newspaper's
pages in June 1942. The "Remember Pearl Harbor and Sikeston Too" campaign
coincide with a tumultuous period in the relationship between African
Americans and the white majority during the war. Pearl Harbor was seen by
the government, especially President Franklin Roosevelt, as a lightning rod
to unite the country. However, many African Americans saw it differently.
The initial reluctance on the part of the military to allow African
American men to enlist and its continued segregation policies caused
African Americans to question why they should participate in a war to save
democracy abroad when they were denied freedoms at home. Violent attacks
against African American soldiers in Louisiana and tenets trying to move
into the Sojourner Truth Homes in Detroit further fueled African American
apathy toward the war.[7] This study will examine the Defender's campaign
which not only addressed the duality of American democracy, but promoted a
self-help plan to strengthen African American and debunk negative stereotypes.
There have been several studies of the Double V, most of them centered on
the campaign sponsored by the Pittsburgh Courier.[8] However, there has
been little scholarly research on dual victory campaigns of other
newspapers. Research by Finkle, Washburn and others deals with the
patriotic aspects of the Double V and the how the African American press
used it to promote African American loyalty to the war effort abroad and
continued fight for civil rights at home.[9] This study builds on that
research by looking at the Defender's plan to improve the economic
condition and social image of African Americans. The dual victory aspects
of the Defender's campaign was an attempt to bridge the gap between those
African Americans who resented being asked the support a country that
treated them as second-class citizens and those who felt that despite
home-front injustices they should back the war effort abroad.
The self-help program harkens back to Defender's early days when founder
Robert Abbott encouraged African Americans to leave the violence and
peonage in the South for better jobs and freedoms in the North. Once they
arrived in Chicago, the Defender provided news about jobs and housing along
with tips about how to dress and act in urban Chicago.[10] This also was a
reflection of the early African American newspapers that sought to educate
and unite the race. The early Antebellum newspapers tried to educate
African Americans on how to act as part of the Victorian middle class. [11]
These same kind of ideals were espoused by Booker T. Washington and his
supporters. Abbott's philosophy was based on these principles, but he and
his successor, John Sengstacke, understood that the "New Negro" of the
1930s and 40s was moderate, but not accommodating.[12] The "National Negro
Defense Program" was a form of racial uplift in which African Americans
tried to overcome their disenfranchisement by demonstrating in their home
sphere that they were worthy of inclusion as equals in all aspects of
American society.
During World War II, the Chicago Defender had a circulation of about
230,000 readers, about 100,000 fewer than the Courier. However, thousands
more probably read the paper because it was passed around and circulated
throughout the country by Pullman railroad porters. The Defender, along
with the Courier, the Baltimore Afro-American, Norfolk Journal and Guide
and the New York Amsterdam News reached a majority of the 13 million
African Americans in the U.S. [13]
The newspapers examined in this study include the city and national
editions of the Chicago Defender from March 14 to June 20, 1942. The city
edition was distributed in the Chicago metro area. The national edition
circulated via railroad and through the U.S. Postal Service to areas
throughout the country, especially the eastern and southern United States.
In its March 14, 1942 edition, the Defender spelled out, in broad terms,
its campaign goals. It stressed that African Americans should save more of
their money and buy products only from African American businesses and
farmers or those that hire African Americans. The program also called for
African Americans to donate money to the National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People to assist in the legal fight to abolish poll
tax and other voting restrictions. The program stated that African
Americans could provide $1.5 million to the NAACP for "a free ballot for
all men." The campaign also asked readers to start "consumer co-operatives
in every town in the United States where there are Negroes" that would work
to establish new businesses.[14]
One of the most unusual aspects of the program centered on African
Americans enhancing their image in an effort to fight "the charge that we
are dirty and depreciate property." The article asked African Americans to
"paint up our houses and grow flowers and wear clean clothes." The article
also mentioned gaining political recognition and providing job training for
African American youth. It ended by stating that the Defender "accepts the
responsibility for starting the program and guiding it with the full
knowledge that the year 1942 must bring to the Negro benefits which have
long been denied for face the future without hope."[15]
On the last page of the March 14 edition, the Defender ran its campaign
logo, a bold V with a drawing of Lady Justice in the middle holding a scale
in one hand and a roll of parchment in the other. The left side reads,
"Remember Peal Harbor" the right side reads, "And Sikeston Too. The phrase
"Fight To Save Democracy" is at the bottom of the logo. The drawing takes
up more than three-fourths of the page and it is the last time the Defender
displayed the image in such a grand fashion. Underneath the logo is a poem
that uses all the memorable phrases in which the word "remember" is used.
It refers to "Remember the Alamo" and "Remember the Maine." The author, who
is not named, places "Remember Pearl Harbor" in the context of the Sikeston
lynching. One of the last phrases states, "Japan LYNCHED PEARL HABOR;
SIKESTON LYNCHED DEMOCRACY."[16]
In the issue announcing its dual victory campaign, the Defender walked the
fine line between supporting the war and continuing the fight against
discrimination and racial violence. It also went a step further in trying
to outline a program that would help African Americans build a stronger
economic and political base while at the same time refuting some of the
negative stereotypes that had been perpetuated by the white majority. The
self-help aspects of the program should not have come as a surprise. Since
the founding of the paper by Robert S. Abbott in 1905, the Defender had a
history of promoting advancement for African Americans. While calling for
African Americans to leave the South for the North during the Great
Migration of early 1900, Abbott also set up programs to ease their
transition from rural to urban settings. The Defender published employment
opportunities, housing information and train schedules. The newspaper also
ran advice columns for newcomers to the North that dealt with topics such
as how to dress and how to act.[17]
The image building components of the defense program may have been directed
at those African Americans, who because of the need for workers during the
war, had moved into higher paying jobs and thus were new members of the
African American middle class. African American leaders, including those in
the press, wanted to show the nation that African Americans were just as
"American" as whites and that the images of inferiority were false. Even in
a society that considered them second-class, African Americans were capable
of sustaining their own businesses and taking care of themselves and their
property.
The week after the Defender announced its program, it published a front
page story on legislation in Congress that would abolish the poll tax in
eight Southern states. In the article the Defender pledged its support for
the bill and that its program would help see that it passed. Ending the
poll tax was one of the main goals of the program and by placing such high
importance on a story that was just an update of a legislative fight that
had been going on for decades the Defender demonstrated it was an issued
that had moved up on its agenda.[18]
In the same edition, the Defender spelled out its plan to increase
employment. The article stated that every African American should use
"every penny" to produce jobs. African Americans should only spend their
money with businesses that were willing to "give us jobs." The Defender
stated that it would assist in the formation of "National Defense Councils
in "every county, town and city and every community in every large city."
The councils would be responsible for making sure that African Americans
only support those businesses that did not discriminate in hiring. The
article also called on African Americans to begin asking local employers
for "good jobs" that formed the "keystone to the whole program of the
Chicago Defender." Good paying jobs would lead to "respect and recognition
for other things." [19]
These jobs would also lead to African Americans owning more homes and
businesses. "The money from better jobs will start us on the way to become
part of the whole economy of the United States." The article ended with the
slogan "Remember Pearl Harbor and Sikeston Too."[20]
On the next page, the Defender ran a story on an appeal by twenty-seven
African American religious and business leaders for President Roosevelt "to
stop fascist tactics from being applied to Negro Americans in this
country." The letter specifically addressed the administration's decision
not to appoint an African American to the War Labor Board and "the insult
of the American Red Cross policy for segregating Negro blood." The leaders
asked the President to call a conference of African Americans and whites to
develop a plan to integrate the country's war effort.[21] This was one of
many pleas African Americans made to be allowed to participate as equals in
the economic and military aspects of the war. However, the Defender chose
to highlight this plea by inserting its dual victory logo in the story.[22]
In the March 21 issue, the Defender plastered its campaign logo on almost
every page. It was inserted in a story about singer Marian Anderson giving
her views about discrimination in the defense industry.[23] It appeared in
a story about the election of block captains for the city's civil defense
program and a wire story about a court ruling that specified that tips
received by baggage handlers and railroad porters, a job held by many
African American men, should not be considered wages.[24]
The Defender's March 21 national edition published the logo with several
stories that did not appear in the city edition. Editors inserted the logo
in a story about the lynching of an African American man in Brookshire,
Texas on February 21, 1942.[25] The logo also appeared in a story about a
white street car driver in San Francisco who was suspended because he
refused to train newly-hired African American drivers.[26] The logo was
inserted into other stories that mostly centered on violence or
discrimination against African Americans.[27]
The back page of the issue was reserved for a full page cartoon and poem.
The cartoon, titled "Loose Me" depicted a white man described as "Anglo
Saxon Race Prejudice" holding back an African American man described as
"The Colored Race's Limitless Fighting Man Power" as a Nazi official
strangles a white woman.[28] Under the cartoon appeared the Defender's
campaign slogan and a poem titled "She Delivered Me And I Will Deliver
You." The poem describes the cartoon:
Mr. President, our GREAT CHIEFTAIN, this SON OF LIBERTY and MILLIONS like
him, ask only that your step forward and say Army, Navy and Factory:
"WITHOUT THIS MAN, ALL IS LOST  LOOSE HIM IN THE NAME OF LIBERY! SOLDIER
HE IS WITHOUT COMPARE; MAN AMONG MEN!"[29]
In its placement of the logo and slogan, the Defender was attempting to
show solidarity with the war effort while continuing to point out the
inequality of American democracy. It also used the logo to highlight
programs, such as civil defense, that demonstrated that the African
American community took the security of it neighborhoods just as seriously
as whites. Not only did the story state who the new block captains were it
also provided information about how citizens could get involved. The story
may have been published regardless of the campaign, but by inserting the
logo the Defender's dual victory campaign linked itself with a program that
enhanced the home sphere.[30]
The third week of the program saw a continuation of the employment theme,
but a change in the name. The Defender's dual victory campaign went from
being the "National Negro Defense Program" to the "Chicago Defender Defense
Program." There was also and additional tag line added to the slogan.
"Victory With Justice For All."[31] There was never any mention as to why
the program went from national in scope to just Chicago. The reason for the
change could be that the Pittsburgh Courier's Double V campaign was
receiving nationwide recognition. It had done an effective job of
popularizing its Double V symbol by sponsoring dances, naming Double V
queens and sponsoring Negro League Baseball games. African American singers
and politicians and some white politicians flashed Double V signs for the
Courier cameras. Organizations such as the NAACP, the United Auto Workers
and the national Negro Baptist Convention had endorsed the Courier's
campaign.[32] Even in some of the Defender's own letters to the editor
there were references to double victory.
The Defender's late start in announcing its campaign, the Pittsburgh
Courier began the Double V in early February, may have led to it not
catching on nationwide. The Defender may have begun its campaign nationwide
in an attempt to thwart the Double V's appeal. The Courier had the largest
circulation African American newspaper and was gaining influence in areas
previously dominated by the Defender.[33] None the less, after three weeks
of appealing to African Americans across the country to "Remember Pearl
Harbor and Sikeston Too" the Defender decided to concentrate on promoting
the program in its Chicago base.[34]
The article reiterated the Defender's theme that African Americans should
only support businesses that are willing to hire them.
The discrimination continues practically unabated. Firms which take our
money right in our midst refuse to hire our boys and girls in the better
types of work even though we spend millions of dollars a year with them. We
have had dinners and teas and inter-racial conferences seeking to break
down the barrier. The results obtained even with the departments of the
federal and state governments have been neglible in comparison to the
effort we have expended.[35]
The article urged African American to organize a boycott of businesses
that discriminate in hiring. The program could use the existing civil
defense neighborhood blocks to get started. "Let's use this organization 
block by block  to organize and direct our spending to the LAST PENNY for
JOBS." The article ended with the phrase "Let's go, Chicago!"[36]
By using the federal government's civil defense structure, the Defender
connected its support of the war effort to the continuing fight to end job
discrimination. When the Defender began its program, African Americans made
up less than three percent of all defense industry workers. Defense
contractors would not even consider African Americans for 49 percent of the
more than 280,000 jobs available during the first two months of America's
entry into World War II. African American leaders had hoped that President
Roosevelt's executive order issued in July 1941 to end discrimination in
the defense industry and federal government would open up jobs for African
Americans. Clearly, some defense contractors, especially those producing
aircraft, would not change their policies despite criticism from the Fair
Employment Practices Committee which was set up to enforce the executive
order.[37] The Defender hoped that its program would place added pressure
on all businesses that practiced discrimination.
There was a striking difference in the way the Defender promoted the
program in the city edition and the national edition. The first two weeks
of the campaign saw similar stories in both editions, but the March 28
national edition had a half page house advertisement began with the phrase
"there Is No Time To Lose. It Is A Fight We, Ourselves Must Make."[38] It
also listed what "Chicago Defense Councils" planned to promote. The
councils would push for African American employment in the federal
government and the defense industry, abolishment of the poll tax in
Southern states, inclusion of African Americans in the armed forces without
segregation, passage of anti-lynching and civil rights legislation and more
affordable federal housing. The councils would also work to create a
lobbying group in Washington to establish and maintain contacts with
government officials. The defense councils would also support the inclusion
of African American representatives at any peace conference at the
conclusion of the war.[39]
The ad also gave specific instructions on how to set up a defense council,
which included electing officers, pledging to "ONLY spend our money with
those people and concerns which agree to give us employment in proportion
to our trade," and to push those who hire African Americans to increase
their hiring. The instructions also stated that members should get other
community organizations to join the program and together they should push
employers to hire African Americans. If they refuse the groups should
boycott the businesses and start their own. In the ad the Defender stated
that it would publish the results of actions taken by various defense
councils and print the names of businesses that refuse to hire African
Americans. In bold type the Defender asked its readers to write in "for
complete details."[40] The same in-house ad ran again in the April 4
national edition, but it never appeared in the city edition.[41]
It is unknown why the detailed information about the defense program ran
only in national edition despite the name change from National Negro
Defense Program to the Chicago Defender's Defense Program. Defender
publisher John Sengstacke may have concluded that the program would play
better on a national scale and show readers that his paper was in step with
the dual victory campaigns being waged by the Pittsburgh Courier and other
African American newspapers. The Defender pushed the boycott aspects of the
program more in the national edition possibly because Sengstacke did not
want to alienate white businesses in the Chicago area that he dealt with.
The March 28 edition also saw the only paid advertisement that
mentioned the Defender's program. The Bi-Rite Drug Store displayed the
program's logo in it's ad for a Victory Sale. The ad stated that it
supported the program, but that was the last time the slogan appeared in a
Bi-Rite business advertisement or any other ad.[42] However, an
advertisement published on May 30 for the March for Negro Rights sponsored
by the March on Washington Movement did mentioned the Defender's program.[43]
After the March 28 editions, the number of program logos inserted into
stories dropped. The logo appeared fewer than ten times in the Defender's
two editions. There were no stand-alone stories about the campaign, except
for the in-house ad in the April 4 national edition. The logo appeared for
the last time in the national edition on June 6. Its last appearance in the
city edition was June 13. The slogan "Remember Pearl Harbor And Sikeston,
Too" appeared in the April 4 edition at the bottom of a front page
editorial asking President Roosevelt to personally look into the death of
Sgt. Thomas B. Foster who was shot and killed at the entrance to a church
by a white Little Rock, Arkansas police officer. The editorial states that
there was no difference between racial violence in the South and Nazi
aggression in Europe. [44]
It is up to you, Mr. President! Every soldier murdered by an Arkansas
bully; every American Uniform scorched by the fire of a coward's gun, is a
feather in Hitler's cap; a victory for the forces of the Rising Sun.[45]
As with many pleas made by the African American press to the President and
other government officials during 1942, the one made in the Defender
editorial was not acknowledged.
Even though there were fewer references to the defense program in the
paper, the Defender continued to cover violence and discrimination against
African Americans. The Defender's program may have suffered from the
success of the Courier's Double V campaign. Unlike the Defender's economic
component, the Courier's Double V focused mainly on demonstrating African
American support of the war effort while pointing out civil rights problems
in the military and defense industry.[46] From it's inception in early
February 1942 until its decline in July 1942, the Courier plastered its
pages with photographs of famous African Americans flashing the Double V
signs. There were Double V dances and sporting events. There was also a
Double V song that aired nationally on NBC radio.[47]
The chief reason for the decline of many dual victory campaigns launched
by the African American press in 1942 may have been the effort on the part
of the editors and publishers to foster a better relationship with
government officials.[48] Washburn states that government agencies,
specifically the FBI and the Post Office put pressure on the African
American press to water down its militant rhetoric.[49] There is some truth
to this, but African American journalists could not appear to be caving in
to government pressure. However, both sides needed each other. The
Roosevelt administration needed the appearance of a united country in
support of the war. The African American press needed access to cover
African Americans fighting in the war. African American leaders, especially
those in the press, realized publicized participation in the war while
fighting for an end to racial violence and discrimination was a key step in
ending African American's second-class status.[50]
During the second half of 1942, African American participation in the war
effort increased despite continued discrimination and racial violence. The
Navy began accepting African Americans and opened an officers training base
in Michigan. The Red Cross reversed its policy on accepting African
American blood, but continued to keep it separate from the rest of the
population. As these gains were made the Defender, Courier and other
African American newspapers began to publish more stories about what
African Americans were doing in the war effort.[51]
The Defender ran front page articles about the first African American men
admitted to the Navy's officers training facility at Great Lakes, Illinois.
The article described the feeling of accomplishment the men felt while at
the same time pointing out the continued discrimination they were forced to
endure at the hands of some white Navy personnel at the base. The dual
victory campaigns provided the spark that led to the initial inclusion of
African Americans in the war effort. As the highly publicized dual victory
campaigns declined the African American press switched tactics and began to
show African Americans participation in the war effort while at the same
time pointing out continued discrimination in the military and violence
against African American military personnel in the South.[52]
There were other problems with the Defender's campaign. After announcing
that one of its aims was to promote new businesses in the African American
community, the Defender failed to mention that aspect of the program in
subsequent articles. The Defender also failed to follow up on the social
image aspects of its program. Neither point was acknowledged in the half
page in-house advertisement published in the national edition on March 28.
Those two points, along with the boycott of businesses that refuse to hire
African Americans is what differentiated the Defender's dual victory
campaign from the others.
It is not known why the Defender did not continue to promote those two
issues. One possible reason could be advertising. Before the war, African
American newspaper depended more on circulation than advertising for
profits because white businesses did not advertise to African Americans.
That began to change in 1942 when white corporations began to advertise in
African American newspapers and magazines. This move was spurred on by the
newly enacted excess profits tax that forced companies to find other ways
to invest their profits. White businessmen felt it would be better to use
those excess profits to reach an untapped market than to give it to the
government. [53] African American editors, including the Defender's
Sengstacke had been working in a combined effort since 1940 to move from a
circulation-based to advertising-based business model. Boycotting
potential advertisers worked against those efforts.[54]
Fear of losing readers may have been the reason the Defender abandoned the
self image plank of its program. Many of its readers were drawn to the
newspaper because of the tough stand it took against racial injustice. They
also liked the sensationalistic style the Defender used in covering various
celebrity and political officials.[55] The African American that needed the
paternalistic journalism of Robert Abbott during the Great Migration had by
1942 been replaced by a more urban-savvy, moderate-to-militant African
American. Telling them how to act, dress and take care of their property
may have been more offensive than uplifting.
Despite the limited amount of time the campaign ran, the Defender used the
"Remember Pearl Harbor And Sikeston Too!" slogan to show its readers that
as one of the leading African American newspaper it was committed to
supporting the war effort aboard while continuing to fight against racial
violence and discrimination at home. The Defender also, though not
successfully, tried to adapt the uplift and self-help philosophy of its
founder in an effort to improve the economic status of African Americans.
The National Negro Defense Program, along with the dual victory campaigns
of other African American newspapers continued a struggle that eventually
strengthen the African American press' position among its readers and its
critics.
Endnotes
[1] "Freedom Here First," Chicago Defender, 7 March 1942.
[2] Lee Finkle, Forum for Protest: The Black Press During World War II
(Cranbury, N.J.: Associated University Presses, 1975) 106-07. Cleo Wright
was taken from the Sikeston, Missouri jail by more than 600 whites. They
tied him to a car, dragged him through the African American section of town
and burned his body. He had been arrested on suspicion of assaulting and
raping a white woman.
[3] "Remember Pearl Harbor And Sikeston Too!" Chicago Defender, 14 March
1942. "The Courier's Double V for a Double Victory Campaign Gets
Country-Wide Support," Pittsburgh Courier, 14 February 1942.
[4] Remember Pearl Harbor And Sikeston Too!" Chicago Defender, 14 March 1942.
[5] Ibid.
[6] "The Chicago Defender To Sponsor National Negro Defense Program,"
Chicago Defender, 14 March 1942.
[7] "The Alexandria Riots," Chicago Defender, 31 January 1942. Alex
Poinsett, Walking with Presidents: Louis Martin and the Rise of Black
Political Power (Lanham, Md.: Madison Books, 1997), 28-30.
[8] Finkle, Forum for Protest. Patrick S. Washburn, "The Pittsburgh
Courier's Double V Campaign in 1942." American Journalism, 2 (1986).
Earnest L. Perry Jr., "It's Time to Force a Change: The African-American
Press' Campaign for a True Democracy during World War II." Journalism
History, 28:2 (Summer 2002).
[9] Washburn, "The Pittsburgh Courier's Double V Campaign in 1942."
[10] Roi Ottley, The Lonely Warrior: The Life and Times of Robert S.
Abbott. (Chicago: Henry Regnery Co., 1955), 159-170.
[11] William G. Jordan, Black Newspapers and America's War for Democracy
1914-1920. (Chapel Hill, N.C., University of North Carolina Press, 2001), 15.
[12] Ibid, 28-35.
[13] Finkle, Forum for Protest, 54.
[14] "The Chicago Defender To Sponsor National Negro Defense Program,"
Chicago Defender, 14 March 1942.
[15] Ibid.
[16] "Fight To Save Democracy," Chicago Defender, 14 March 1942.
[17] Ottley, The Lonely Warrior, 160-61.
[18] "Abolish Poll Tax Now!" Chicago Defender, 21 March 1942.
[19] "Defender Defense Program To Secure New and Better Jobs," Chicago
Defender, 21 March 1942.
[20] Ibid.
[21] "Appeal For Integration Is Ignored," Chicago Defender, 21 March 1942.
[22] Ibid.
[23] "Singer Due In Chicago For Recital" Chicago Defender, 21 March 1942.
[24] "Report South Central Block Captains Elected" Chicago Defender, 21
March 1942.
[25] "Secret Texas Lynching Is Second In Year 1942" Chicago Defender, 21
March 1942.
[26] "Suspended Motorman For Refusing To Instruct Negroes" Chicago
Defender, 21 March 1942.
[27] The program logo appeared more than 15 times in the 21 March 1942
edition. About half of them were not inserted into stories. Throughout the
campaign the Defender inserted the logo indiscriminately.
[28] "Loose Me" Chicago Defender, 21 March 1942.
[29] "She Delivered Me And I Will Deliver Her" Chicago Defender, 21 March
1942.
[30] "Report South Central Black Captains Elected" Chicago Defender, 21
March 1942.
[31] "Let's Go, Chicago!" Chicago Defender, 28 March 1942.
[32] Washburn, "The Pittsburgh Courier's Double V Campaign", 76-78.
[33] Andrew Buni, Robert L. Vann of the Pittsburgh Courier. (Pittsburgh,
Pa: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1974) 314-15.
[34] Ibid, "Let's Go, Chicago."
[35] Ibid.
[36] Ibid.
[37] Finkle, Forum for Protest, 95-97.
[38] "Victory with Justice For All!!" Chicago Defender, 28 March 1942.
[39] Ibid.
[40] Ibid.
[41] "Victory with Justice For All!!" Chicago Defender, 4 April 1942.
[42] "Bi Rite Victory Sale" Chicago Defender, 28 March 1942.
[43] "Join The March For Negro Rights" Chicago Defender, 28 March 1942.
[44] "Mr. President It's Up To You!!" Chicago Defender, 4 April 1942.
[45] Ibid.
[46] Washburn, "The Pittsburgh Courier's Double V Campaign." 74-75.
[47] Ibid, 75.
[48] Earnest Perry, "We Want In: The African American Press' Negotiation
for a White House Correspondent." American Journalism, 20:3 (Summer 2003), 35.
[49] Washburn, "The Pittsburgh Courier's Double V Campaign," 81.
[50] Perry, "We Want In," 43.
[51] Washburn, "The Pittsburgh Courier's Double V Campaign," 82. Earnest
L. Perry Jr., "A Common Purpose: The Negro Newspaper Publishers
Association's Fight for Equality During World War II." American Journalism,
19:2 (Spring 2002), 34-37.
[52] "Induct First Recruits Under New Navy Plan," Chicago Defender, 13
June 1942.
[53] "A Memo to Negro Advertising Men," PEP: Negro Publisher, Editor and
Printer, February 1944.
[54] Buni, Robert L. Vann of the Pittsburgh Courier, 314-15. Perry, "A
Common Purpose," 31.
[55] Jordan, Black Newspapers and America's War For Democracy, 32-33.
Submitted to the History Division, Association for Education in Journalism
and Mass Communication, 2004 Annual Conference, Toronto, Ontario Canada